Eye Boot Camp, Hyderabad, July 2014

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My First Day at My First Hackathon

My name is Sothira and I am a freshman at MIT (well, technically I am a rising sophomore, but I am not ready to say that yet). I am from Cambodia, but I moved to America last year for MIT and it has been such an amazing adventure since then and I have no doubt the coming week is another adventure in the making.

I wish I could say that I jumped at the idea of being a part of this hackathon when Dr. Sangwan told me about it. I was scared and really intimidated by the scale of this event, I have heard about last year workshop and all the achievements that has brought. I have only taken introductory classes at MIT, and I have almost no experience with coding. He told me to just do it and that the experience will change my life. This is going to be an understatement of the year but I am really glad I followed his advice.

I have been interning at LVPEI for a month and I have seen everyone there working tireless to fight blindness. As for today, I became more inspired at the end of each speech and listening to all the participants is no less inspiring. I realized that I am surrounded by people who are pumped and ready to give it their all. Even though I was hesitant, I am going to give it my all as well (I mean, come on, after that amazing dinner, who wouldn’t? ).